Everybody – Logic

Logic is keeping up with his unrelenting string of releases. Having released a project a year since 2014, he dropped three teaser tracks throughout the start of 2017, before his 5th of May album release titled Everybody.

In anticipation of more new material, I was hesitant. My general attitude is that Logic overdoes it with releasing content. He’s a talented guy, and his first studio album, Under Pressure, continues to be my favourite of his. The two albums he’s released since then have, in my opinion, been relatively hit and miss, which could potentially be put down to the fact that he doesn’t give himself enough time to consolidate his content into cohesive package that keeps your attention throughout.

This album is underwhelming for the same reasons. But I’ll go over the good stuff first. One of the highlights for me is, as ever, Logic’s rapping itself. He’s got great flow and the bars are put together well. This on top of the fact that the instrumentals are tight means that the entire package just comes together really well. Logic doesn’t rap on top of the instrumentals, but sits in with them nicely. I also love the use of strings, particularly in the opening and closing tracks Hallelujah and AfricAryaN. The orchestral touch to these tracks gives them a cinematic feel, making them really strong opening and closing tracks for the album, and some of my favourite of the album altogether.

Despite an album that shines in the ways I’ve just mentioned, Logic really lets himself down in terms of the lyrical content. He looks to tackle prejudice of all kinds in this album, discussing issues concerning race, sexuality, religion and his own experiences with racism. These ideas are tied together in a narrative that details the death of a man, who finds himself in an afterlife realm with a ‘god’ character. This god explains to the man that he will continue to be reincarnated time and time again until he lives the life of every single human being across the entire existence of the human race. It’s an interesting concept, and I think the takeaway point can be seen in the skit Waiting Room, where the god points out to the man that all acts of cruelty done between humans are actually acts done to oneself. The message here is seen across the entire album: we are all the same and so we should treat each other with love and respect. This is a decent enough concept (albeit a corny one), and the narrative he puts behind it is unique. Logic just fails to give us anything substantial in his lyrics. The sheer depth of the topic makes it difficult to go into any real, intelligent detail on it.

You really get a feel for this in the track Black Spiderman, which encapsulates the theme of the album pretty nicely. It tries to be exceptionally positive, and in terms of the music it manages that, but lyrically it fails to deliver anything really meaningful. It just feels more like Logic screaming “fuck all this and accept diversity” over and over again (a phrase Logic actually said when explaining this track for Genius). A lyric on Mos Definitely a similar taste in the mouth. It ends saying “Black people: just fight, fight for the right, fight for ya life”. It’s a nice sentiment, but just a bit poor lyrically. It’d be nice to hear something new added to the debate, but this just feels like an admirable yet fairly vacuous show of support for equality.

Logic’s heart is certainly in the right place (as an aside, I think the ‘tragic mulatto‘ comments are harsh), but for me it all comes back to his fast release cycle of late. Musically I think it’s all there but the lyrics fall far short of what I’d like to hear, and I think a little bit of time out would really do him some favours. A bit of a breather would give him a chance to come up with some new content, and work on his lyrics themselves. Overall, this album misses the mark a bit. As much as I love some of the tracks instrumentally, I can’t help but cringe at a lot of the lyrics.